When an important exam looms on the horizon, one of the best ways students can prepare for it is by taking mock exams. Research has found that from K-12 to college, students who took advantage of practice tests ahead of the real thing had less anxiety about their performance and performed better.
Likewise, when your continued cyber compliance and your current and future DoD contracts are on the line, a mock exam can be one of the most powerful CMMC assessment preparation tools at your disposal.
Formal CMMC assessments are intensive explorations of your organization’s ability to comply with the Defense Industrial Base’s strict standards for handling sensitive information. The best way to ensure you have this ability to handle DoD contracts is to be prepared. In this article, we’ll explore how you can use CMMC pre-assessments to their full potential to position your organization for success.
How CMMC Mock Assessments Prepare You For the Real Deal
A mock assessment for CMMC compliance, much like an SAT or LSAT practice test, is designed to simulate the experience you will have on the day of the assessment. Much like the real thing, a pre-assessment involves a comprehensive review of all of the cybersecurity practice areas for your CMMC level.
In a mock assessment, you hire a CMMC assessment service to conduct an assessment as if it were a formal assessment. Your organization and the assessor will work together to define which systems, data, and processes will be included in the assessment and work out any other logistical details before moving on ahead with the assessment. A pre-assessment, like a formal assessment, then involves:
- Thoroughly reviewing your System Security Plan and other relevant documents, such as network diagrams and asset inventories.
- Interviewing key personnel in your organization to assess the implementation of your security practices and your ability to handle Controlled Unclassified Information.
- Conducting vulnerability scans or penetration tests to evaluate the effectiveness of your security controls.
After the pre-assessment has been completed, the assessment service will identify gaps between your current practices and the requirements of your CMMC level and give recommendations on how to address these gaps, such as technical or procedural changes you can make to prepare for a formal assessment.
The difference between a mock assessment and a formal assessment is:
A mock assessment does not need to be performed by a C3PAO.
Formal CMMC assessments are performed by a Certified Third-Party Assessor Organization. These organizations are officially recognized by the federal government and authorized by the Cyber AB, a non-governmental organization that acts as the CMMC ecosystem’s official accreditation body. C3PAOs ensure that contractors and subcontractors are all held to consistent standards in formal assessments.
On the other hand, mock assessments can be performed by Registered Provider Organizations, which are also accredited by the Cyber AB. These organizations employ and contract CMMC Certified Assessors, CMMC Certified Professionals, and Registered Practitioners capable of performing pre-assessments. CCAs, CCPs, and RPs have all gone through a rigorous certification process of their own to ensure they can effectively analyze your current security posture for both mock and formal assessments.
As there is a limited number of C3PAOs in the Defense Industrial Base, you might have difficulty finding one to conduct a mock assessment on your schedule. RPOs may be more available and capable of providing CMMC assessment services that fit your timeline or other logistical constraints.
The results of a mock assessment are not submitted to the DoD.
How well you perform on a CMMC mock assessment has no effect on your existing DoD contracts or any contracts you may be in the process of applying for. In fact, nobody outside your organization and your CMMC readiness partner needs to know how well you performed on your mock assessment.
CMMC pre-assessments are purely for your own education. By subjecting you to the same rigorous conditions as a formal assessment, they help you identify areas where your cybersecurity practices fall short of compliance, whether because they are improperly or insufficiently implemented or because you lack the documentation to demonstrate compliance.
Having a mock assessment performed early enough gives you time to identify these compliance issues and take steps to rectify them ahead of your formal assessment, where the results do matter and will be submitted to the DoD.
A mock assessment can be tailored to put more scrutiny on the areas of most concern in your cyber compliance posture.
Mock CMMC assessments are designed to simulate the conditions of real CMMC assessments, but with one key difference. Put yourself in the shoes of a student studying for an exam—if you know you struggle with one section of the material more than others, you can tailor your studies and test preparation efforts to focus on those weaker areas rather than spending time unnecessarily reviewing material you already know.
Likewise, a CMMC pre-assessment can be tailored to focus on cybersecurity practice areas you know you are deficient in. If a previous Gap Analysis or formal assessment has revealed a deficiency in specific practices or domains included in the NIST SP 800-171 Rev 3 standard, you can have a pre-assessment focus on providing a formal level of rigorous scrutiny to them to evaluate if the efforts you have taken since then have raised your practices up to standard.
For example, say that you had a Gap Analysis performed earlier to assess your CMMC 2.0 L2 compliance, and the consultant you hired found gaps in your cybersecurity practices, such as:
- A lack of sufficient documentation of your access control policies for mobile devices
- Out-of-date role-based security training content given to organizational personnel
- A poorly documented media sanitation procedure
The analysis results showed that while your organization was meeting standards for 11 of the 14 domains, it was currently falling short of CMMC 2.0 standards in the following three domains: Access Control, Awareness and Training, and Media Protection.
After working to beef up your compliance in these three domains, you schedule a CMMC mock assessment that will cover your entire body of cybersecurity practices, but especially your practices within those three domains. This way, you can see if the changes made are enough to pass a formal assessment.
What consultants specialize in CMMC pre-assessments?
As a registered CMMC Consulting Firm, Cask Government Services specializes in mock assessments, Gap Analysis, Plan of Action & Milestones remediation, and other preparatory services as part of our CMMC Readiness Program. Highly experienced CCAs and CCPs with numerous JSV/CMMC assessments, pre-assessments, Gap Analyses, and other consulting efforts provide highly personalized cyber compliance support, working closely with you and your teams to prepare you to pass your formal assessments with ease.
Reach out to us today to arrange a meeting with Cask’s CMMC experts and schedule a CMMC mock assessment.
